Characters in novels with ridiculous names

Cafe Society
101

Do graphic novels/comics count? I can’t even start to count all the superheroes whose real first and last names start with the same letter. Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Stephen Strange, Scott Summers…I know there are many who don’t, but it always bugged me when I read comics as a kid. And don’t even get me started on prophetically-named comic characters (the worst of which, IMO, was “Telford Porter” who became “The Vanisher.”)

Oh, and for the mention above of Remus Lupin turning out to be a werewolf, let me also wonder at the odds that a kid named “Sirius Black”'s Animagus form would end up being…wait for it…a black dog. :rolleyes:

102

Dorothy Sayers had some interesting names:

Montgomery Thipps, architect
Sir Julian Freke, physician
The Honorable Frederick Arbuthnot, dim-witted best friend
Inspector Sugg
Dennis Cathcart, bounder
Mr. Grimthorpe, homicidal farmer
George Goyles, who signed his name Geo. Goyles, which the Dutchess always read as “Gargoyles”
Mademoiselle Simone Vonderraa, mistress
Miss Vera Findlater, victim
Bertha and Evelyn Gotobed, domestic servants
Rev Hallelujah Dawson, long-lost cousin
Mr Murbles, soliciter
George and Robert Fentiman, veterans
Miss Joan Murchison, secretary and lock-picker
Norman Urquhart, soliciter
Rosanna Wrayburn, aka “Cremorna Garden”, elderly, but at one time notorious, actress
Haviland Martin, farmer
Inspector Umpelty, policeman
Montague Egg, salesman
Maher-Shalal-Hashbaz, cat
The Reverend Theodore Venables, clergyman
Harry Gotobed, sexton
Potty Peake, simpleton
Nobby Cranton, gentleman thief
Dian de Momerie, Paris Hilton of the '20s
William Ingleby, advertising agent
Alexander Pym, boss
Miss Meteyard, copywriter
Mr. Tallboy, murderer
Major Todd Milligan, drug dealer
Mrs. Crump, charwoman
Leititia Martin, dean
Helen de Vine, research fellow
Miss Lydgatetutor
Reggie Pomfret, ass
Miss Agnes Twitterton, spinster
Frank Crutchley, swain
The Reverend Simon Goodacre, clergyman
John Munting, writer
Harwood Lathom, artist
Agatha Milsom, spinster
Charmaine Grayle, victim
Muriel Severn and Thames, countess

and, of course,

Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey, gentleman
Mervyn Bunter, valet
Honoria Lucasta Delgardie Wimsey, Duchess
Gerald Wimsey, the Vicount St. George, nephew

103

God, I think Daylight Saving Time has sucked my brain out through my ears. I kept reading backwards and thinking “Pat Riot? What’s a pat riot?”

104

Ermintrude Inch, from the short story by Arthur C. Clarke, “The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch.”

And also Dirk Gently, which sounds like a porn name but is the detective in 2 novels by Douglas Adams.

105

FWIW, my preteen/teen children were slack-jawed when I told them the meanings of the words lupin and sirius. They were all blown away by the cleverness and meaning. They’re books for kids, remember. :slight_smile:

106

Yeah, kids also really get into the dog Latin spell names which are cringingly obvious for grownups.

107

Death? Death? But… why?

108

it was his great-grandmother’s surname. Historically, it had been spelled D’aeth. French, presumably.

In Murder Must Advertise, he noted that most people cursed with the name pronounced it to rhyme with “teeth”, but he found it more picturesque to rhyme it with “breath”.

Three corrections to my list: It should have read “Inspector Sugg, idiot”, and “Miss Lydgate, tutor”, and “Mirabelle Severn and Thames, countess”.

109

Makes him sound badass. how many people do you know who can say “Death is my middle name” and mean it?

110

Well, technically, Death isn’t his middle name; it is his second. Being as he has an even number of names, he CAN’T have a middle name.
Oh, we should add Maurice Vavasour, actor.

111

Obediah Polkington, from the same story.

112

Loren Coleman’s BattleTech books are rife with characters with ‘Chinese’ names, such as Ty Wu Non and Nin Ten Do.

113

Which doesn’t change the fact that Tolkein made all that shit up, and created those “translated” meanings.

But thanks for finally helping me understand his name.

114

If you speak Japanese, you’ll find than many anime and manga characters have ridiculous yet oddly appropriate names. For example, Sailor Moon’s civilian identity is Usagi Tsukino, which literally translates as “rabbit of the moon.” Another one would be Ichigo Kurosaki in Bleach. His first name means “firstborn child” if written with one set of kanji, the numbers one and five with another set (his bedroom door has a number 15 on it), and with yet another set, it means “strawberry.” His sisters are named Karin and Yuzu, which are names for other types of Japanese fruit.

I would list many other characters in Shonen Jump, but the list would be too long.

115

I just finished a book called The Furies, by Bill Napier, chock full of references to Greek and Norse mythology. It was pretty wretched overall, so I’m glad it was free – it was one of those books that had just barely enough characters I liked to make me finish in spite of all the characters I grew to detest. Ambra Volpe was a pretty weird name, though the rest were quite ordinary, and she’s not the one I need to complain about. Yes, need.

At the very end, the author suddenly realizes he’s gotten one of the main characters in way too much trouble, so he suddenly throws in a deus ex machina sort of character, not mentioned at all previously, who is miraculously both able and willing to help. This character’s name is Siggy Frey. I don’t know why he messed with the name of a male hero; he should’ve just made her a winged Valkyrie flying to the rescue and been done with it. Bleah.

116

Well, no, it literally translates to ‘Moon Field Rabbit’ - ‘Rabbit of the Moon’, is just a (deliberate) punny reading of it. (As both are pronounced the same way.)

月の兎 (兎 could also be うさぎ or ウサギ) is what translates as ‘Rabbit of the Moon’.
Her name is rendered as 月野うさぎ which translates as I said above.

117

E. E. “Doc” Smith had a character named Pilinixi the Dexitroboper in one of his “Lensman” novels.

That was just silly.

118

True. I forgot about that. The names of the other Sailor Senshi follow the same pattern. The North American dub of the series ruined it by giving them English names. At least Usagi’s sort of fit - she was called Serena, which sounds like Selene, a goddess of the moon. They also changed Mamoru’s name to Darien, and completely got rid of him being called Endymion in the ancient Moon Kingdom, which would have been appropriate as the mythological Endymion was Selene’s lover.

119

There once was a writer of English textbooks in Sweden called Gotobed.

120

I’m surprised I’m the first to mention Ponyboy and Sodapop Curtis in SE Hinton’s book The Outsiders. (mmmm and also Cherry Valance played by Diane Lane)